


More That the Sum of Its Parts

by ninamalfoy



Category: Football RPF
Genre: F/M, M/M, unbetaed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-19
Updated: 2010-07-19
Packaged: 2017-10-10 16:24:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/101738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninamalfoy/pseuds/ninamalfoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>True friendship is seen through the heart, not through the eyes. – unknown</p>
            </blockquote>





	More That the Sum of Its Parts

**Author's Note:**

> First posted on LJ on January 12th, 2007.
> 
> Not true in the least bit. I'm just borrowing their public persona to play.
> 
> From Tina's POV - for those not in the know, she's Sebastian Kehl's longtime partner.

"Hey," she says. Smiles at him, looking up into these warm brown eyes. He smiles back, revealing whitegleaming teeth, "hey, nice to meet you," and she shakes his proffered hand. Dry, warm, and a firm hold. No wimp. But according to Basti, Christoph Metzelder wasn't one and never would be. And she knows that Basti admires him immensely for that. She had been somewhat surprised when Basti had announced, with a mouthful of spaghetti, that he's going to join the RoterKeil organization. Together with Christoph. No, with Metze - as Basti calls him.

She watches them hug, the way men do, short and with backslaps, and then Basti grins at him, "finally made it, what?" and Christoph shrugs, "well, isn't as if there's anything good on TV," and Basti laughs, his hand still on Christoph's shoulder.

"So, yeah – what will you be having, Metze?" he asks.

"The usual," Christoph says. He turns to Tina and asks, "This seat taken, madam?"

She smiles and shakes her head, watching Basti walk to the bar. "No. Are you always this polite?"

She likes his chuckle. Deep and vibrant. "My mother raised me well. And you're Basti's girlfriend. The more reason to be polite."

"And _you're_ Basti's best friend. The more reason to tease you," she says, winking at him.

Christoph grins. "I like your point of view."

She smiles. "So, how much has Basti told you about me?"

His eyes slide over to where Basti's talking with the bartender, and then he's back on her. "That he's the most damned lucky man to have found you."

It is not what she has expected. "Oh."

"Yeah," he says, and then the one corner of his mouth tugs up in a half-crooked smile. "Drunk men always tell the truth – in vino veritas, you know."

"Well, I didn't go that far to get him drunk to let him tell me about you," Tina says, smiling at him, "but then, he does that all by himself."

"Does he, then?" Christoph says.

"Yeah," Tina laughs. "He does, at that. Metze this, Metze that… it's actually cute. If you weren't a man, I'd have some reason to worry."

And she knows that the dim lightning in the bar isn't playing any tricks on her eyes – Christoph is blushing. "I don't think you'll ever have to worry," he says. "You're a great woman."

She smiles. "A true gentleman, too. How lucky Basti is to have you as a friend."

***

Basti sighs, plopping down on the couch. "Fuck."

She raises an eyebrow at him from the comfortable armchair she's sitting in, her legs crossed and the latest Kürthy book in her hand. "What's the matter?"

"It's Metze," Basti says. "His Achilles' heel is more fucked up than ever, and the docs are thinking about a third operation."

"So?" she says, "isn't that good? At least it might sort out whatever's wrong with his foot."

"No," Basti says, and he rubs a hand over his face. Wearily. "It means that he can never play football again after this operation goes through."

"Oh," she says. Just this one word. _Oh._

She knows how much Christoph means to Basti. And vice versa. There have been a lot of days in the past months – weeks, even – that she spent alone in their flat because Basti was at Christoph's, trying to distract his friend, joking with him, watching stupid movies with him and sometimes even managing to drag him out to clubs or bars, anything to rescue him from the darkness Christoph threatened to disappear into. And there have also been nights that she spent alone in their bed because Basti was with Christoph. Sleeping on that couch of his, "it's a fucking IKEA couch, but it's really rather comfortable, so I don't mind much," he had once told her, grinning when he had come home from training and a night spent at Christoph's, "at least this way I don't have to commute through half Dortmund. You don't mind, do you?"

She had smiled and said no, of course she didn't.

And she still doesn't. Basti's a good friend to Christoph, and she's proud that he's caring so much. She has accompanied them at some of their outings, and she's been shocked how little this Christoph resembled the Christoph she had first met. He had looked drawn, circles around his eyes and although he handled his crutches with dexterity, it was easy to see that he'd rather throw them into the next dumpster if he could.

Basti had been close to him all the time, preferring to sit next to him and opposite to her rather than the other way around, and he'd tell Christoph about training, about what who said to whom, inserting jokes and sly remarks and whenever Christoph'd smile or chuckle, Basti'd grace that with a great shit-eating grin.

She thought that Christoph was lucky to have a good friend like Basti.

"How is he doing?" she asks, putting the book aside.

"How the fuck is he doing? He called me as soon as he heard about the diagnosis. Fucking hell. He doesn't…"

"…deserve it," she finishes. "So what are you doing here?"

"Doing here? What do you mean by that?" Basti asks, looking confused.

She smiles and shakes her head at him. Men. "Why aren't you with him? He needs you right now. More than ever, I'd say."

Basti shakes his head, but a little smile appears on his lips. "Well, I've been neglecting you over the last weeks…"

"Shoo," she says, motioning to him to take his leave, "I can do with a bit more neglecting. I've wanted to finish this book for some time, after all. So – be a good friend to Christoph."

Basti rises from the couch, the smile somewhat subdued. "I always am."

"I know," she says, watching him disappear into their bedroom to pack a bag with essentials for the sleepover at Christoph's.

She's always known.

***

She hadn't been able to relax properly at her mother's, what with the nurses bustling around and her dad dying bit by bit and her mother worrying herself to death. She hadn't known what to do until Brigitte, her older sister, had told her to go home, hugging her. "Little sis, you'd feel better there. Here, it's like a madhouse and you feel like you're in the way, don't you? I'll phone you daily and give you the lowdown. I need someone in this family to stay sane," and Tina had smiled into the dark luscious curls of her sister's hair, tightening the hug.

And thus she's home a day earlier than planned and has dropped her bags in the bedroom, intent on unpacking them later after a little nap. The silence of the flat is welcome after all that humdrum at her mother's house. So very welcome.

The comforter has slipped down a bit and she blinks sleepily, drawing it back up. What was that sound that has woken her? Then she realizes – someone is trying to get into the flat, the sounds of a key being inserted familiar. Basti. Of course. Back from training, probably.

She smiles to herself. It isn't often that she gets to surprise him, so that should make for a nice change.

The door opens, and she hears steps. But – it isn't only Basti. There is someone else there. Shuffling, and then rustling, the door clicking shut behind him – them – and then there is more rustling, and she hears whispering. Words she can't make out. Almost.

"Quiet, you," and that is Basti, but there is something in his voice that jars her. The other one replies something, she can't make out – but the voice sounds strangely familiar to her.

More rustling.

And then it hits her. What that means. What _this_ means. Basti and someone else. In their flat.

The bottle of mineral water hits the floor milliseconds after that, the glass breaking and bubbles splashing everywhere.

The sounds stop. "Stay there," and that is Basti, again. Then the bedroom door opens, and, "Tina?" he says, and isn't his hair more mussed-up than usual? But she just blinks at him. As if she were still half-caught in Morpheus' arms. "Sorry – I must've trashed around in my sleep, and –" She smiles at Basti. "Sorry. Welcome home."

He smiles at her. "Yeah." And then he runs his hand through his hair, and she knows he's nervous. "I didn't expect you back already."

"It was such a hullaboo at Mom's," she says, smoothing down the comforter. "I didn't know what to do with myself, and in the end Biggi sent me home."

Basti nods. "Good. Your dad okay?"

She shrugs. "Well, he isn't getting worse. Let's talk about it later, yes?" She yawns and pushes the comforter back, clad only in an overlarge BVB t-shirt that Basti had once given her after she'd stolen it so often from him, and nothing else. There are comfortable sweatpants in that drawer down there, and then she finds woolen socks, too. "I'll clean up the water puddle and the glass, and then we can call take-out, okay?"

"Okay," Basti says, "erm, Metze's here, too."

She's glad that she's bending down to pull up the socks over her feet, because she could not have hid her reaction from Basti. Christoph. _Metze._

She swallows. "Oh."

But she somehow manages to smile at Basti, at her boyfriend of almost a decade, at a total stranger she doesn't know in the littlest bit, and then she walks out into the living room and there's Metze, leaning against the wall next to the door, and they exchange hellos, even shake hands, and she still can't think clearly. Basti and Christoph. Basti and Metze. No – what was it that Christoph liked to call him? Yes. _Kehli_. So it's Kehli and Metze. And then Basti's next to her, an arm around her, and she sees Metze's eyes flicker down to it, and –

And then Metze says, "Erm, I guess I should head home and give you two some time alone," and Basti nods, "yeah, see you tomorrow," and she feels like she's being shoved onstage into a play that she doesn't even know the script to, hasn't any clue about her lines.

"Ciao, Tina," Metze says, smiling down at her, and she has to blink away something. "Ciao, Christoph," she says.

And then the door closes behind him and she's alone with Basti.

"What are you in the mood for?" he asks. "Chinese? Thai? Italian? Or sushi?"

She shakes her head numbly. How dare he. How _dare_ he.

"Something else?" And then Basti's in the kitchen, leafing through the heap of flyers they have accumulated since they moved in. "There's Greek, or Spanish – tapas, yes? Fajitos?" He knows she likes these.

"Okay," she says. What else can she say, really? He nods at her as he fumbles in his jeans pocket for his cell, and then he's punching in the numbers.

She turns and walks back to the living room, sitting down on the couch. Her favorite pillow is there, a heart-shaped fluffy one that Basti had given her years ago. At their third anniversary. She strokes it absently.

They must've stumbled against that wall there. And then – she recalls the shuffling with painful clarity – they must've been wrapped around each other, maybe even kissing. Hands disappearing under clothing.

Suddenly she sees. _Them._ How Christoph – he's taller than Basti by some centimeters – catches Basti's lips with his own, angling his head, and Basti sighs into the kiss, his arms tightening around Christoph, and she sees the jeans pocket bulge with Basti's hand slipping into it. Christoph moans and –

"I ordered the number 3 and a bottle of wine, that okay with you?"

Basti's standing in the door to the living room, looking at her, the cell still in his hand. She blinks. "Yeah, that's okay," she finally says, stretching a bit to disperse these weird thoughts. What should she do? With every second ticking by, she's losing more and more ground. It flows through her fingers like the finest grains of sand, quicksand, and she's lost, drifting.

"I'll do up the table," he says, "you want a cup of tea? Coffee perhaps?"

She nods. "Uh, tea. Jasmine tea, if there's still any."

"Got you," he says and smiles at her. "Your favourite tea."

***

She hasn't talked to him about it. Not yet. But she doubts she'd ever do it. Best not to raise sleeping dragons, she thinks. She has even gone along to some matches to watch him. And seeing Christoph. How they talk to each other on the pitch or on the benches, standing right next to each other and she thinks, _how could you not have realized?_

Even back then. Even when she had met Christoph for the first time, it had been there. Maybe not acted upon yet, but the seeds had been there. They had needed only some nurturing.

And she had stood by, had seen a friendship turn into love without noticing anything. People don't notice things that are closest to them – who had said that? Her mother? Yes, after she had gotten the diagnosis of the cancer that was eating up her husband and Tina's father. She had sobbed and clutched to Tina. "I didn't see it. I saw him every day, upon waking up until closing my eyes for sleep, but I _didn't_ see it."

And she hadn't seen Basti falling for Christoph. She knows that this can't be just a 'friends with benefits' thing. Basti's not the type for that. He does it all the way or not, that's the way he is. In every aspect.

They still behave like they did. It surprised Tina how easy it had been, falling into the routine of their relationship. He still teases her, she makes fun of his vanity, sometimes they cook together, or they go out together. Or they have sex. And it's still as good as it was. Maybe even better.

Tina smiles. She's got a surprise for Basti when he comes home. She has waited until she was at her gyn/ob, just to be sure.

Now she is. She has even asked the doctor to tell her what sex the baby is. It'll be a boy. A boy for Basti to play football with. Their boy. He'll be healthy and he'll be the best little guy that there is, and they'll be a family. Finally.

***

Basti's lying on the couch, a book resting on his stomach – something about child care – but he's not reading. He's looking out the window. There's that faraway look again that Tina doesn't like. He should be happy. He should care for her and their little boy. She strokes her swollen belly, feeling her baby boy moving around in her, and she even imagines she can hear the faint little heartbeat.

"Basti?" she asks, softly.

He doesn't react.

"Basti."

"Sorry, what's it?" He has twitched, as if he had woken up from a dream about to go bad, but his eyes had been open. Now a faint smile graces his lips as he looks at her sitting in the armchair. "Everything okay?"

She smiles. "Yeah. He's fine. Kicking around a bit, but that's not too bad."

Basti grins. "He's predestined to become a footballer."

Tina laughs. "Or maybe an ice skater. A basketballer wouldn't be bad either."

He gets up, putting the book on the table and kneels down in front of her. "Hey, little guy," he whispers against her belly, his breath warm against her taut skin, covered up only by a thin t-shirt. She cards her fingers through his hair. Basti'll be a great father, no doubt.

"We'll be the best parents that there ever were," Basti says, looking up at her. Echoing her thoughts.

She just nods and smiles at him.

***

Suddenly it hits her.

All these little things she hasn't noticed, too overwhelmed with Luis, the birth and the strenuous weeks afterwards, worrying – babies still die of SIDS – and caring for him, their little precious baby with these blue eyes that Basti has bestowed upon him. And Basti's injury, that ugly gash down the side of his knee, and he really had been lucky that it hadn't gone deeper or sliced a different angle, because then he'd have to look at a very long recuperation time. The World Cup before that. That had been something else, and she will remember it all her life.

But something has changed nevertheless.

Basti isn't staying away anymore. Well, when it's with the team or with the national squad, he is, but he isn't over at Christoph's anymore. He doesn't talk about Christoph to her anymore.

Has he caught on to her?

Or has it just… ended? The… whatever it was, relationship? And just the friendship was left over? She doesn't know. She has watched 'Sommermärchen' and she had looked out for them without wanting to. And there they were, together on a bed. But not touching. Not like these two youngsters – Schweinsteiger and Podolski – were, not casually or jokingly. But then, later on in the movie, they'd been sitting next to each other in the bus and joking and chatting, and she knows that they're still friends.

That last scene. Where Christoph raises that beer stein to Basti's lips, and he gulps it down, eyes closed, and then you see Christoph looking at him, laughing.

It's that look that stays in her mind long after she's walked out of the dark cinema into the bright daylight. That same look was also on Christoph's face when he had teased Basti in that room, twirling a towel.

But Basti hasn't stayed over at Christoph's. For how long?

At least since his eyes have that strange look. And now she knows what it is. He's missing Christoph. Something must have happened. Maybe he realized that he couldn't have both of them. Maybe that day – when she had almost caught them – made him think about this. Maybe he thought it was too dangerous. Maybe they had a row.

She doesn't know. But she does know that she doesn't want Basti to look that forlorn. That _lost_. She doesn't want that.

***

After a chat with her sister on the phone, Tina's sitting in the armchair, feeding Luis from her breast. He's a warm weight on her arm and she loves how his face scrunches up in concentration, suckling her nipple.

Her sister had said, "I don't believe that there's only one big love in everyone's life. I think there are several. After all, you want different things from a guy when you're fifteen, compared to when you're twenty or thirty."

She's right, Tina supposes. But then, Biggi has had more boyfriends than she can count whereas she, Tina herself, has had only one other guy before Basti. Whom she's now been with for almost ten years. A long time, and yet she has never tired of Basti. She has never fallen out of love with him.

But Basti had gone and fallen in love with another person while still being in love with her.

And now he's hers only again, but – he's not himself anymore.

It's as if he lost something of himself and is now searching for it. Like a prince in a fairytale. A key to his heart or something like that.

And Tina misses it, too. She misses the Basti he was back then. Before he stopped seeing _him_. Before then, Basti had still been _her_ Basti.

She sighs, feeling Luis move against her, slurping slightly. She smiles down at him, stroking the fuzzy patch of hair. He's the most gorgeous being she has ever seen.

"Dear little Luis," she whispers. "Your mommy is worrying too much for her own good."

Why does life have to be that complicated? She wishes that she were Luis, that they could switch places for some time. Some weeks, maybe. Then she wouldn't have to feel that hurt whenever she'd see that Look – it has to be in capitals now – in Basti's eyes, knowing that whatever happened also happened partly because of her, and there's _nothing_ she can do.

***

Basti's playing with Luis, letting the small but surprisingly strong fingers grasp his thumb and when he pulls free, he tickles his son's tummy, grinning down at the happy gargling that Luis emits. Tina smiles and watches her men, drying her hands on the dishtowel.

"Hey," Basti says as he notices her, still smiling.

"Hey," she says, returning the smile. "Having fun with him?"

"Loads," Basti says. "It's almost as fun as playing with the PS2," he quips, which earns him a chuckle from her.

"You are impossible, Sebastian Kehl," she says.

"Hey, I've got to uphold my rep," he says, grinning at her.

She shakes her head and there's an unfamiliar shopping bag on the couch. From a megastore chain, that much she can see. "What's that?" she asks.

"A present," Basti says. He's looking at Luis, but he's not smiling anymore. "It's for Metze."

_Metze._

She swallows. "Any particular reason?"

"It's his birthday today," Basti says. "I thought…" and then he looks up at her, and there's something in his eyes. "I thought I'd head over later."

Maybe that's what he needs. Her – and him. The two big loves of his life. It sounds like an excuse, but Tina knows that it isn't. It's just who Basti is.

"Yeah," she says, "and you're going to sleep over at his when it gets too late, aren't you?" She smiles at the flicker of surprise that gets replaced instantly by an answering smile. A big smile, even, and he nods. "Yeah, probably."

***

In the morning, Tina smiles at seeing the other side of the bed empty. Basti's where he needs to be. And he'll return to her, just like he always did.


End file.
